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Mile High Chuck's place in the hobby

Started by DavidTheDavid,

251 posts in this topic

dupont2005

dupont2005

Posted
Posted
I've read his history, and his life has been amazing.

Just amazing.

 

 

Yeah, I've enjoyed his "tales" as it's one person's insight into comic collecting history, and from someone who has been very involved with it. It's idiosyncratic, which is fine. He's not striving for impartiality from what I see. It's him providing his take on things.

 

Like others, though, I've gone to the website, found something on my want list, and suffered enough sticker shock to keep looking elsewhere. I wonder if he's painting himself into a corner. If he re-priced everything to what's commonly understood to be market value and at the same time released all his back stock, maybe he really would flood the market. Does anyone here have an idea, because I don't, of what his back stock is like? I get the impression that he must have mountains of books that probably aren't even available at any given time.

If literally everything in his back stock is readily available for 80% below his asking price, the market is already flooded. Him selling his stock at the same price would change nothing, except him possibly getting a sale along with everyone else.
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dupont2005

dupont2005

Posted
Posted

I used to think the first one was a horribly shady deal, but I've been told by many people he actually did everything he could to be fair with the lady. If it's accurate or not I don't know, but seems to be the prevailing story so I'll buy it. I don't know about the second deal at all.

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Dr. Balls

Dr. Balls

Posted
Posted
I'm just saying he's not a genius businessman simply because he's remained in business all this time. He was an average businessman who got a windfall of luck having nothing to do at all with business savvy. It gave him an edge and allowed him to prop himself up as the big guy on the block because he could write the checks nobody else could.

 

This describes a lot of business people I have met over the years. Stacks of reserve cash can cover up a lot of business mistakes. Eventually it catches up to you, but when you operate on a huge reserve or windfall - you can put that time off for a long while.

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topofthetotem

topofthetotem

Posted
Posted
I'm just saying he's not a genius businessman simply because he's remained in business all this time. He was an average businessman who got a windfall of luck having nothing to do at all with business savvy. It gave him an edge and allowed him to prop himself up as the big guy on the block because he could write the checks nobody else could.

 

This describes a lot of business people I have met over the years. Stacks of reserve cash can cover up a lot of business mistakes. Eventually it catches up to you, but when you operate on a huge reserve or windfall - you can put that time off for a long while.

I don't know if anybody here read "Barbarians at the Gate" but at the end of the book they tout Howard Greenus (SP) as turning Nabisco into a massively profitable company after the buyout.

It became known years later that he used the already built up war fund left in place by F. Ross Johnson to show on the books at least that Nabisco was profitable in those years and when the fund ran out bye bye "profits".

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dupont2005

dupont2005

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Posted
I'm just saying he's not a genius businessman simply because he's remained in business all this time. He was an average businessman who got a windfall of luck having nothing to do at all with business savvy. It gave him an edge and allowed him to prop himself up as the big guy on the block because he could write the checks nobody else could.

 

This describes a lot of business people I have met over the years. Stacks of reserve cash can cover up a lot of business mistakes. Eventually it catches up to you, but when you operate on a huge reserve or windfall - you can put that time off for a long while.

My dad was a high school dropout construction worker who dreamed of being his own boss his whole life. He's always been a little bit shady, always started a small construction company, and always went bankrupt. But he never gave up, and before the housing boom he was buying up cheap lots on the outskirts of civilization for $2000 a pop, doing some shady deals with his friends because he was superintendent on a large track home project, allowing them to make large bids he would accept and then offset the cost of building custom homes on his own lots, and then selling the homes. He'd then reinvest all his proceeds into more lots. By the time the housing market hit it's peak his two thousand dollar lots were twenty thousand dollar lots, and he had plenty of them. He sold them without building homes on them at all, bought a huge chunk of unincorporated land, had it annexed into the city, and started a large private subdivision. Built four model homes, and then the housing market crashed. Not a single lot sold. To this day. He made and lost several million dollars over the course of a couple years, and ended up fleeing the country on a hundred grand he stole from an investor. Never came back to America. It's been about 7 years now. He was never a genius businessman.
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Dr. Balls

Dr. Balls

Posted
Posted
I'm just saying he's not a genius businessman simply because he's remained in business all this time. He was an average businessman who got a windfall of luck having nothing to do at all with business savvy. It gave him an edge and allowed him to prop himself up as the big guy on the block because he could write the checks nobody else could.

 

This describes a lot of business people I have met over the years. Stacks of reserve cash can cover up a lot of business mistakes. Eventually it catches up to you, but when you operate on a huge reserve or windfall - you can put that time off for a long while.

I don't know if anybody here read "Barbarians at the Gate" but at the end of the book they tout Howard Greenus (SP) as turning Nabisco into a massively profitable company after the buyout.

It became known years later that he used the already built up war fund left in place by F. Ross Johnson to show on the books at least that Nabisco was profitable in those years and when the fund ran out bye bye "profits".

 

I have not read it, but I can definitely believe it.

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topofthetotem

topofthetotem

Posted
Posted
I'm just saying he's not a genius businessman simply because he's remained in business all this time. He was an average businessman who got a windfall of luck having nothing to do at all with business savvy. It gave him an edge and allowed him to prop himself up as the big guy on the block because he could write the checks nobody else could.

 

This describes a lot of business people I have met over the years. Stacks of reserve cash can cover up a lot of business mistakes. Eventually it catches up to you, but when you operate on a huge reserve or windfall - you can put that time off for a long while.

I don't know if anybody here read "Barbarians at the Gate" but at the end of the book they tout Howard Greenus (SP) as turning Nabisco into a massively profitable company after the buyout.

It became known years later that he used the already built up war fund left in place by F. Ross Johnson to show on the books at least that Nabisco was profitable in those years and when the fund ran out bye bye "profits".

 

I have not read it, but I can definitely believe it.

Buy the newer edition it is the most up to date.
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oakman29

oakman29

Posted
Posted
I'm just saying he's not a genius businessman simply because he's remained in business all this time. He was an average businessman who got a windfall of luck having nothing to do at all with business savvy. It gave him an edge and allowed him to prop himself up as the big guy on the block because he could write the checks nobody else could.

 

This describes a lot of business people I have met over the years. Stacks of reserve cash can cover up a lot of business mistakes. Eventually it catches up to you, but when you operate on a huge reserve or windfall - you can put that time off for a long while.

My dad was a high school dropout construction worker who dreamed of being his own boss his whole life. He's always been a little bit shady, always started a small construction company, and always went bankrupt. But he never gave up, and before the housing boom he was buying up cheap lots on the outskirts of civilization for $2000 a pop, doing some shady deals with his friends because he was superintendent on a large track home project, allowing them to make large bids he would accept and then offset the cost of building custom homes on his own lots, and then selling the homes. He'd then reinvest all his proceeds into more lots. By the time the housing market hit it's peak his two thousand dollar lots were twenty thousand dollar lots, and he had plenty of them. He sold them without building homes on them at all, bought a huge chunk of unincorporated land, had it annexed into the city, and started a large private subdivision. Built four model homes, and then the housing market crashed. Not a single lot sold. To this day. He made and lost several million dollars over the course of a couple years, and ended up fleeing the country on a hundred grand he stole from an investor. Never came back to America. It's been about 7 years now. He was never a genius businessman.

Dude that is so .I'm so sorry. :sorry:

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JD Glitch-migration

JD Glitch-migration

Posted
Posted
He made a big mistake at SDCC this year. In past years, he brought a vast array of trade paperbacks and his booth was always crowded. This year he brought a vast array of overpriced back issues, and lost $10,000. Of course, he's blaming the producers of Comic-Con exclusives for draining the wallets of attendees. He, apparently, hasn't considered the possibility that it's his own fault for pricing his books ridiculously high.

 

if you watch the spurlock documentary he's on the verge of a breakdown the entire SDCC, blaming everyone from the con organizers, to the atendees, to pop culture in general for his lower sales.

 

the weirdest thing being that when a guy is interested in buying his whole case of valuables, he has to sit down and talk to his colleague almost in tears becuase he can't bring himself to do it, yet in other scenes hes talking to his wife about how he might have to close the doors.

 

don't know if he was playing up to the camera, but it wasn't a flattering impression at all.

 

and actually he's not rolling in dough, the documentary mentioned many times that mile high is close to shutting down due to him not being able to even pay rent these days mixed with his weird unwillingness to sell certain books.

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JD Glitch-migration

JD Glitch-migration

Posted
Posted

you guys really should rent/watch Spurlock's doc. granted for us TRUE BELIEVERS its a little watered/dumbed down, but just if you are at all curious about Chuck check it out.

 

also fans of mass effect, they feature one of the best mass effect cos play groups ever, and theres a whole part about 2 artists doing their first con portfolio reviews.

 

but the Chuck stuffs the real gold.

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Supa-Bad-Mofo

Supa-Bad-Mofo

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I was in the big store/ warehouse in the hood a couple of days before the Denver con. His people were marking up all the books VF or better. All back issues were half off, but the prices were still out of this world...even after half off. The selection was dissapointing and the books were grossly overgraded. His NM are my F/VF. None of his "high grade" books would have made the cut at CGC. I walked out without a thing. I did see a few high grade books on the wall, but they were priced 3 times value. I did get to see a Spidey #1 and a few other grails in the flesh for the first time. That was cool.

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shadroch

shadroch

Posted
Posted
He found a valuable comic collection. The proceeds floated him for a while but looks like that's coming to an end. Since he made multiple millions of dollars off one deal he's never had to have competitive prices, a website from this millennium, or reasonable overhead. He just had to write big fat checks for dealers inventory then up the price a thousand percent and watch people who didn't know any better buy it all.

 

 

First off, he didn't make millions off the Church collection. I'd wager he made more off the final figures with MH2 than he did with MH1.

His prices thru the early 90s were quite competitive and dealers used to hate when MH did a show. His mail order prices were pretty good, too. He offered a decent volume discount and many dealers bought from him.

At some point, he must have realized it was dumb to sell stuff at cheap prices when he could no longer replace the material and prices were always rising. That business plan no longer works, but he still has a flourishing store, mailorder and internet company.

He's forgotten more about this business than most of us will ever learn.

He's become a bit of a joke, but he wasn't always one.

In the late 1980s, Marvel and DC paid good money to have Buddy Saunders and Chuck come to their dealer seminars and anyone who listened learned a good bit.

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